Profiling of pesticide industry opponents halted after company practices exposed
By Carey Gillam, Margot Gibbs and Elena Debre
A US company that was secretly profiling hundreds of food and environmental health advocates in a private web portal has halted the operations in the face of widespread backlash after its actions were exposed by The New Lede and other reporting partners.
The St. Louis, Mo-based company, v-Fluence, is shuttering the service, which it called a “stakeholder wiki”, that featured personal details about more than 500 environmental advocates, scientists, politicians and others seen as opponents of pesticides and genetically modified (GM) crops. Among those targeted was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s controversial pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services.
The profiles often provided false and derogatory information about the industry opponents and included home addresses and phone numbers and details about family members, including children.
The profiles were provided to members of a private, invite-only web portal where v-Fluence also offered a range of other information to its roster of more than 1,000 members. The membership included staffers of US regulatory and policy agencies, executives from the world’s largest agrochemical companies and their lobbyists, academics and others.
The profiling was part of an effort to downplay pesticide dangers, discredit opponents and undermine international policymaking, according to court records, emails and other documents obtained by the non-profit newsroom Lighthouse Reports. Lighthouse collaborated with The Guardian, The New Lede, Le Monde, Africa Uncensored, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and other international media partners on the September 2024 publication of the investigation.
News of the profiling and the private web portal sparked outrage and threats of litigation by some of the people and organizations profiled.